Ask Mobile Spins A Webby Award

Ask Mobile swept up a pair of awards from this year’s Webbys. Ask took both the Webby and the People’s Voice awards for the mobile service it launched in October 2006.

“It feels pretty good to be recognized by our peers and by the folks who use Ask Mobile as well,” Brendan Hallett, Ask Mobile’s product manager, said in his euphoric blog post about the win.

Ask Mobile withstood challenges from Yahoo’s potent Mobile Web, which is now equipped with oneSearch, a search approach similar to Ask’s ‘information at your fingertips’ philosophy; Weather.com, Century 21, and Market Annex’s Travelosa were also nominated in the category.

Ask’s design choice for its mobile product, as Hallett noted and Gary Price, Ask’s director for online info resources, told WebProNews in January, minimized the number of clicks a person needs to get to the information they need. Gary called it “simple, clean, and effective,” and most importantly, easy to understand by new users.

That also meant not having a search box on the main Ask Mobile page. It’s a click away from there. By placing it a level below the main menu, people are encouraged to navigate directly to the most popular features available, which generally satisfy a mobile user’s needs.

We anticipate Ask will have its Ask City service available via mobile at some point this year. Gary mentioned it in January, and we’re guessing a summer release could happen, in order to take advantage of traveling vacationers who may need a little help from their mobiles.